Past Jobs

I love my job right now. Part writing, part editing, part teacher assisting, part being a mom. Every day looks different. For the most part I have no set schedule. It's truly wonderful. In the past, I've had a few jobs that didn't work out quite so well:

1. My first job was at Bonanza. I was 15 and a lot of my friends worked there. I worked my way up from hostess and drink pourer, to order taker and food runner, and finally, cashier. Cashier was the most prestigious job there; it was seriously like being head cheerleader. And then, like many other teenagers with first jobs, I decided I didn't want to work there anymore, made up a reason to be mad, screamed obscenities at the manager, walked out, and never went back.

2. Next I worked at a fabric store. My job title was Fabric Cutter. If there was nobody in the store that needed fabric to be cut, then our jobs were to clean and dust and organize. Unfortunately, my OCD got the best of me and I was mostly found in the pattern section, filing and dusting, and trying to organize. So much so that I was never around to cut fabric. I didn't exactly get fired but my name stopped showing up on the schedule.

3. I've been a waitress in a lot of different places. It was always my favourite job. I worked at Pizza Hut for awhile and though I couldn't be a waitress there (as they served alcohol so you had to be at least 18), my job was to help the waitresses take out food. There, I made a huge mistake. It always bothered me that the dishwashers were so disorganized so occasionally I'd help them to catch up. I ended up being put on the schedule as a dishwasher because I was so efficient. I quit.

4. I was a receptionist once for a furniture manufacturer. I had the best desk! Behind the office was a metal shop and a wood shop. Many of the workers in the shops were from...far away. And had names that were hard to pronounce. I dreaded when they got phone calls and I'd have to page them. One day, the general manager quit. A few weeks later I noticed that they hadn't replaced him. I quickly got another job and a month later the furniture manufacturing company went out of business.

5. When I was pregnant I had a couple of part-time jobs. One of them was at a lottery booth. It was easy and if there was down time I was allowed to read my book. The problem was that every time I left the booth I had to spend a good five minutes locking things away. And I was pregnant. I had to leave that booth every 15 minutes because there were some people pressing on my bladder.

Sadly, I could probably write about this for another couple of hours. I've never been the kind of person who could keep the same job for longer than two or three years. Luckily, I've never had to.

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